Aqueous, resin compositions are widely used in many different fields, including coatings, inks, detergents, additives for plastics, water treatment, papermaking, and oil field production and refining. In particular, polyacrylamide and copolymers of acrylamide have gained prominence as nonionic or cationic polymers that are water soluble. Because of industrial hygiene considerations associated with use of acrylamide monomer, a replacement for acrylamide has long been sought. Modifications such as N-substituted acrylamide monomers (e.g., N-methylol acrylamide) have been proposed. Polymers produced with the acrylamide and modified acrylamide monomers, however, have other shortcomings that make them undesirable. For example, the only reactive functional group of acrylamide is the unsaturation, so the polymerized acrylamide unit does not provide a site for crosslinking or further modification. Crosslinking or other modification of the acrylamide unit would be useful to reduce water sensitivity of the homopolymer or copolymer at an appropriate time.
Thus it would be desirable to provide a water soluble monomer that could be used in the place of acrylamide, would not have the industrial hygiene concerns associated with acrylamide, and could be modified when it would be appropriate to reduce the water sensitivity of a polymer prepared from the water soluble monomer.